The Last to See Me

by M Dressler

  “So you tend to the illegal. I’ll tend to the inhuman.”

  “And then we’ll be out of this.”

  “We’re getting there.” Pratt slaps the constable’s shoulder and keeps an eye on Ellen, climbing the hill in her smart business suit. “We’re making good progress.”

  Yes, it’s going even better than I’d planned. The village will never know I was the one who tied the feet of the Lambrys so they’d never come back to the house I wanted for my own, but they’ll know, soon, it’s her, it’s Alice who’s been all the trouble, breaking apart water towers and coming out of mirrors and ruining cabins and throwing men through roofs. I drift over the trees and hover over the spot where Pratt meets Ellen. Pratt’s right: we’re almost there now. We’re almost free.

  27

  I slept deeply in my quiet hotel room the night I fled Folde and left Quint, and heard the church bells not once. Instead, I went on dreaming. I dreamed that Quint was standing beside me at St. Clements, ready to marry me, looking so fine and happy. I dreamed I stood in a white dress with a long ribbon down my back, and then the priest asked me to say my name. I, Emma. But every time I tried to say it, it came out the wrong way, somehow. Backward. Over and over again. Am me. Am me. Am me.

  The church went suddenly dark. Only the stained windows floated in great blue waves over me, and the white doves glittered and told me it was light, somewhere … But when I turned to tell Quint we should run into the sun, he wasn’t there, and when I turned back only the Chinese families stood on either side of the aisle, holding their lanterns up like red bloated fish.

  And then I was running toward the beach with Mrs. Folde’s dead baby in my arms, only it wasn’t the Infant Joseph. It was a dead baby seal. And I remember thinking, if only I could make it to Quint’s side, together we could bring this wet, dead thing back to life. And I ran with the limp seal in my arms and somewhere the fog siren blew and it meant a ship was foundering, and somewhere my father was calling to me to stay clear of the cove because it would only cut your head off and mix it with the sea.

  These were the last dreams I ever dreamed on earth. No more, after this day. Ghosts don’t dream. Only the living. And I’ll say this: perhaps you living should pay more attention to your nightmares. If only I had. Maybe if I’d listened, if I hadn’t brushed this dream off as fever and confusion, I’d have seen what was going to come next.

  I woke up in my cold room. April 14, 1915. The date of my death. No coal in the empty grate. The pitcher and basin where I’d left them. The curtains were drawn and thin. It was late morning, still and quiet. I’d been so haunted by Mr. Folde and all that had happened I’d curled into my nakedness and slept for too long. I hurried to button my shirt and pull up my skirt and unlocked the door and went down the hall and around the corner into the parlor with the cold fireplace and asked the sleepy desk clerk who’d let me in the midnight before:

  “What time is it, please?”

  He looked down, blinking, at his watch. He didn’t seem to see it. We knew each other, a little; he’d once been hired to do the accounts for Mrs. Strype, until he’d turned to drink, I remembered, then joined the Temperance League and showed his back to sin.

  “Nine-thirty, Miss Finnis.”

  “Has anyone been by to ask for me?”

  “Quint Lambry has.”

  “What?” And I’d missed him?

  “I said we don’t give out the room numbers of our women guests. That’s a rule.”

  “Did—but did he leave any message? Did he—board a ship, do you know?”

  “Carlo Fanoli came by at eight to deliver the coffee bags, and he said, ‘Young Lambry’s on the Scandia, looks like.’ So I guess he’s boarded. I guess, Miss, it left with the tide.”

  He said this nervously. Pityingly. As though mine was a soul that needed temperance, like his.

  How dare he.

  “I need some coffee,” I said.

  “It’s brewed and waiting in the dining room.”

  I wouldn’t act like a girl spurned. Because I wasn’t that. I was still me, Emma Rose Finnis, with money in my pocket and my heart lurching. No. I must pay no attention to my heart. It’s the pocket that matters. That’s what the world teaches us, doesn’t it? I had money, money to go where I—and then I looked out the dining room window and saw them, going by in a flash in a smart horse and buggy. Reflected in all the mirrors, Mr. and Mrs. Augustus Lambry. Wearing stiff looks on their gray faces, above their white collars. Blank. Unhappy. But why would they of all people have been unhappy that morning? Then I guessed. I knew it for certain. They must have hated it, forcing Quint to go to get away from me. That was it. There must have been a struggle. I saw it plain as day. Because Quint had come to see me at the hotel, hadn’t he? It had to have been to tell me something. Maybe more of what he’d told me last night, squeezing me.

  I’m not going to leave you, not like this.

  It was the modern world. A girl didn’t have to wait and ask permission for what she wanted. She could take things into her own swift hands. Go where she liked. Follow him if she decided to. Reach and climb. There was always work to do, somewhere, for those willing to do it. There must be a way I could learn more from the world, how it worked, and how to get what and who I wanted out of it.

  I left the coffee and went back to the teetotaler at his desk and asked for his ship’s timetables. I fluttered through them.

  “When’s the next ship to San Francisco?” I asked.

  “In three days. The Scandia went today.”

  “I see a loaded steamship in the cove right now.”

  “That’s the Lorna. They’re getting her fitted up with a special cargo, wedding lumber for Eudora Lambry’s new house at the fort. She’s getting married, you know. The Lorna’s only headed there.”

  I handed the timetable to him. “Here. There are boats that go from Fort Kane down to San Francisco.” I’d seen them, steaming past the Point. And Quint would have to wait for a train to take him east, wouldn’t he? The same train any girl might take, going the same way. And if he had to wait for it, that would leave time for me—but not if I lollygagged here. No, it would have to be the Lorna now and then the Beatrice, according to the shipping news, from the fort tomorrow.

  “Who do I see about getting passage on the Lorna?”

  “I don’t think you can, Miss Finnis. I’ve taken the pledge, you see, and I have to be truthful.” His face was red; he looked embarrassed. “The Lambrys own that boat, along with Captain Alstad. It’s only taking that special-carved wood, like I say, columns for the wedding-house. The lady is going to marry one of the officers.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “It’s not up for public passage.”

  “That doesn’t mean I can’t get a ticket.”

  “They wouldn’t let you.” He blushed. “Not you, miss. Sorry. I’ve pledged.”

  I flushed back, then thought quickly.

  “I wonder, have you said anything to anyone about my being here?”

  “No. We won’t say who our women guests are. Like I say.”

  “Thank you for that. And I’m going to pay you for another night. And for some breakfast I want brought to my room. And here’s a little something for you, to thank you for not saying anything more to anyone. All right?”

  “You don’t have to do that.” He held both hands up. “I’ve taken the pledge. And we don’t give out—”

  “A boiled egg. And some toast. And more coffee.”

  “Got you.”

  For the rest of the long day I hid in my small room. I picked at the shell of my egg. It rained a bit, and then more heavily. I walked back and forth in front of the curtained window, which only looked out on the washtubs and the flooding chicken yard. I waited, a gull who needed to keep her head. I had my plan. Since the Lambrys would never give me a ticket to sail with their daughter’s wedding lumber toward the Beatrice, I’d have to stow away aboard the Lorna and hide in the hold. I had only
to wait for the men to be done winching the lumber into place and for the crew to go off to the boardinghouses and saloons for their suppers—and then I’d get my chance. There’d be no moon if this rain kept up. No one would see me as I ran.

  I closed my eyes and thanked my Da for standing with me on the cliffs all those years ago and teaching me all the parts of the steamers he’d loaded with wood from the mills. Showing me where the great planks of lumber were balanced on the forward deck. Pointing out the pilothouse, and the cabins for the captain and first mate. Amidships, he called that. Dead center in the boat. He pointed to where the double doors of the hatches opened heavily, but not too heavy, starboard and port, and led down to storage for other cargo, below decks, in the hold that was lighted by good-sized glass portholes, high above the water-line. Shallow drafted, these dogholes, he’d said. Perfect for whenever you found yourself needing to turn a tight corner.

  When it’s dark, then, Emma Rose, I cheered myself. You’ll creep to the harbormaster’s office, and then down to the docks, and across and under the winches and onto the gangway, then get aboard and slip down through the nearest hatch—so quick, you won’t seem like more than a gust of wind.

  That was my plan. So simple.

  28

  Sorry,” Ellen is saying to Pratt as they walk under Evergreen’s treeline away from the workers burying the coffins. “I was just trying to have a normal day. Get dressed, go into the office. See about a new listing. Our broker, my boss, is on her way back. I was trying to get us a new deal.”

  “Because you think our job here is almost done?”

  “Isn’t it? I hope?” She looks at his bandaged hand.

  She walks a little distance ahead of him and reaches up to touch a low cypress branch. “In a way I did want to be there today. But I also wanted to … I wanted to get clear and have a peaceful hour. I thought maybe I had a feeling for all this, Philip. But I don’t. I just can’t face what you face, on and on. It’s too ugly.”

  “So that’s why you didn’t come to see your family.” He leads her past Evergreen’s stone gate and into the street. I keep close behind them.

  “Well, would you want to see your family like that? Your ex-wife in a coffin?” She looks up at him.

  “If I thought it would do some good.”

  “I’ve had enough of doing good for a while, I think. I’m just ready to live life again. I don’t want to keep picturing things like you screaming tangled in all that wood and shingle. Hearing you moan in the ER.”

  “I wasn’t moaning,” he objected.

  “You were. And saying her name, over and over—Emma Rose, Emma Rose—and bleeding all over the place. I can’t believe you didn’t break anything. Are you made of steel?”

  “No. Flesh.” He pauses. “You?”

  “I thought you were dead when I found you at the Point.” She shakes her head.

  “You saw what I saw. It was worth it. To get that message from her.”

  “But I’m not the one who—oh.” She stops, seeing where they are, how far they’ve come. “Are we going to the house now?”

  “We are.”

  “Why?”

  “To do exactly what you want, Ellen. Get things back to normal. Find peace.”

  “That’s wonderful! I was thinking today—let this be the last day, please. There are limits. There have to be limits. We’re only human.”

  “Yes. There’s always that excuse.” He takes her by the arm and stops her. “Tell me truthfully. Are you in any way happy about all of this? About how it’s turning out?”

  She shifts and slips away from him. “No. Of course not. Just the opposite. Sometimes I imagine that because of my name, because of everything that’s happened since I came here, I’m to blame, somehow. As if I brought it all on. In some way. But I don’t see how I could have. It has nothing to do with me, I’ve decided. I’m not responsible. I don’t care about any of them. I never have. I didn’t even know this family. And I’m nothing to them. Just a means to an end. And they’re nothing to me. Except that I want to sell their house. That’s it.”

  “But I’m a little confused, Ellen. In practically one breath, you’ve told me it was too painful for you to see your blood relations dug up and now that you don’t care about them at all, feel no real connection to them. So which is it?”

  “Can’t it be both? Don’t you ever feel torn?”

  He takes something from his breast pocket. A drinking flask. “I do. All the time.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Agnes Fanoli was right. Sometimes the soul needs a hot toddy. Or a whiskey, at any rate. Good for the pain. I bought this at a nice shop near the hotel.” He holds it up in the air to her. “Care for a swallow?”

  “No. I don’t really drink.”

  “I’ve noticed that. You don’t drink. I don’t see you eat. You’re very … strict with yourself. You work hard at being you, don’t you? And you’re committed to that work. Your work.”

  “My job is to always be available to my clients.” She looks down, embarrassed. She must hear how stiff and false it sounds.

  “Which is why you’ll come to the house with me now?”

  “If I have to, yes.”

  “I just need to test something.”

  “Well if we’re going back in, I’ve changed my mind.” She takes the flask from him all at once and drinks. A good, long swallow, like a sailor’s. “Ouch. I wish we didn’t have to, though. I wish it was all done and over with already, and Dane could come and just do whatever he’s going to do to the place, gut it and tear it to pieces for all I care. That’s what I really feel. That’s me.” She hands the whiskey back to him.

  “Yes.” Pratt smiles and drinks and exhales and seems, although I don’t know why, relieved. He puts the flask away. “I believe you now. I know you’re exactly who you say you are.”

  “You seem happy all of a sudden.” She smiles back. “What happened at the cemetery? Did you—did you get—?”

  “We’re getting close. But I need you. We’re in this together. For just a little longer, what do you say?”

  “Is that why we’re going to the house now? Because you know something? You know how to call it out, how to make it—manifest?”

  “We were always going back to the house, Ellen.”

  29

  I waited until the sailors were singing noisily in the saloons. I hurried through the mist and rain to the lee of the harbormaster’s hut. I saw the Lorna, lying quietly at anchor. I clutched the post at the head of the cliff steps and saw no one stirring outside the ship’s lighted cabins. The gangway took my feet without a sound. The hatch was exactly where my father said it ought to be. I had to set my wet case down to pull one of the hinged doors open. Then I was shivering and pulling my valise in and closing the door behind me and creeping toward the round windows still glowing with a little light, even in the mist and the lingering gale. A yellow haze from the electricity burning all around the cove fell into the hold. From time to time I heard voices, shouting. I backed deep in, soaked to my skin, and found a berth for myself by sitting on a coil of rope beside three tied barrels of fish oil. I hadn’t thought about what they would do if they found me. I had to make sure they didn’t. Slip out again at the fort, when it was safe.

  After a while, the rain stopped and I heard footsteps coming out of a cabin. A low voice spoke, and then a higher one, and as they grew louder near the hatch I could begin to hear them both.

  “… a special shipment from my father to my sister … our best redwood …”

  “Duty … this is over-diligence …”

  “But … I’m happy here.”

  “You don’t want … ashore?”

  “Captain, my father insists. I’m to keep an eye on this shipment until it reaches the fort. He’s testing me, in his way.”

  “Well I’m sure you’ll rise to the test, son.”

  Their voices funneled down from above me.

  “Is this rain finished, do you think, Ca
ptain Alstad? Will the wind shift now?”

  “All is well, Albert. I’m less concerned about the weather than whether you’ll be bored keeping company with an old man.”

  My breath caught. It was Albert, the younger Lambry son. The eager one, Quint always said. The one who’d do anything his father asked. I remembered how his face looked in the glow of the July fireworks over the harbor. Excited. Round as a cherry. Not a hair on his chin.

  “I’m not bored at all. And I like doing what my father asks me to do.”

  “You’re a good son. You and your brother both. Were you sad to see him leave for Eastern climes?”

  “Not at all. I was happy for him. And my parents, too. My brother was starting to feel restless and tied down here, Captain. He wanted to leave.”

  “Wanderlust.”

  “I’m a much more steady type. Easy-going.”

  “Would you like to go in and play some cards? No harm?”

  I couldn’t hear what Quint’s brother answered. And I didn’t care to. It didn’t matter to me. He couldn’t know what was in his brother’s heart, could he? I’d seen his parents’ faces. He didn’t know what had happened. Only Quint and I did.

  The hull of the Lorna rose and fell so sharply that I had to reach for one of the barrels beside me. This was no time for losing my balance. I was glad I wasn’t one of those squeamish girls who get sick just looking at a skiff rising and falling on a crest. I’d never been on a big boat but I’d watched them long enough, and the Lorna seemed sturdy and weatherly. She rolled without much groaning, the hold smelled fresh and rich and live with oils and new wood, and I heard mice scurrying around on the beams. She was a good, new boat. Only a little rainwater had trickled through the hatch when I came in, sliding around my feet.

  After more time passed I heard some men shouting, as if from the dock, sounding a bit drunken, and then coming closer and lowering their voices and seeming more sober and serious. It was late now. The captain walked about and gave an order, and someone sounded a bell. Now hurried footsteps, and the checking of the ties, and the sound of the hatch lock sliding and shooting into its bolt-hold over me. A sharp voice over my head shouted the wind had turned sou’sou’east.